“Energetic” compositions are used in a wide variety of applications, e.g., explosives, propellants, initiating materials, and gas generators. Energetic compositions may reflect one or more characteristics of their particular application; that is, an energetic composition may be designated as, for example, an explosive in one application, or a propellant in another application. Conventional formulations of energetic compositions can include the following: binders, bonding agents, combustion catalysts, desensitizers, explosives, fuels, oxidizers, plasticizers, and wetting agents. Typically, conventional formulations of energetic compositions are mixed, cast, pressed, and sometimes dried.
One of the primary goals in developing new energetic compositions is to increase the energy output. Within the conventional formulation of an energetic composition, explosives, fuels, and oxidizers, are typically thought of as directly contributing to the energy output, while binders, bonding agents, desensitizers, plasticizers, and wetting agents are typically used to enhance manufacturability or to ensure that explosives, fuels and/or oxidizers maintain some degree of proximity to one another in the formulation. After mixing of the conventional formulation, an explosive particle or an oxidizer particle within the resultant mix can be located at a distance from a combustible fuel particle by, for example, intervening binder or plasticizer particles. This separation of the explosive particle or the oxidizer particle from the combustible fuel particle can decrease the energy output of the energetic composition, when compared to an energetic composition in which the explosive particle or the oxidizer particle is adjacent to the combustible fuel particle.
A U.S. patent application, entitled, “Energetic Composition of Adjacent Layers of an Explosive and a Combustible Fuel and Making of Same” and filed in the U.S. Patent Office on 6 Sep. 2007, discloses an energetic composition of adjacent layers of an explosive and a combustible fuel, such as, a combustible metal. Layers of the explosive are formed by vapor deposition upon a surface, and layers of the combustible metal, are formed by vapor deposition or physical deposition onto a surface of the explosive.
There remains a need to further enhance the energy output of an energetic composition, to more easily form different shapes and sizes of these shapes with the energetic composition, and to use readily available energetic materials in the making of the energetic composition.